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Rural address scheme on the way

Posted on February 6, 2009, 9:09am

South East rural properties will have new addresses by April 2010 in a distance-based scheme that will make locating houses more efficient, particularly for emergency services.

A quick response is vital in emergencies, but many properties are on unnamed roads, requiring the property owner to rely on local knowledge and reference points when describing the location to emergency personnel.

The Department of Transport, Energy and Infrastructure (DTEI) has created a uniform new addressing system for every property in rural Australia to solve the problem.

After being rolled out interstate, the Loxton/Waikerie area is trialling the new system, with the aim to have all of South Australia on board by mid 2011.

One of the people in charge of assigning the South East’s new addresses is South East Resource Information Centre (SERIC) executive manager Terry Strickland.

Mr Strickland said SERIC had been asked to complete preparation work for six local councils.

“It will mean you won’t have 15 different ways of describing how to get to someone’s place,” he said.

“In particular, emergency vehicles will know how to get to a location quickly and easily.

“Basically it will cut out a lot of previously ambiguous addresses.”

SERIC is working with local councils to determine each new address and answer any questions about the practicalities involved.

“DTEI has provided us with all the road and property boundary data that relates to each council area,” Mr Strickland said.

“We put all of that over the latest aerial imagery of the region so we can start assigning the addresses.

“There will be some properties we can’t address though because the roads don’t have names.“
Councils will be responsible for naming and signposting any unnamed rural roads, including government roads and new developments.

Roads that cross council boundaries with different names will also need to have an agreed name.

Residents can expect to learn their new address later this year.

Once owners have been given their new address they will need to notify friends and family, although utilities, such as gas, electricity, phone and water companies will be automatically notified on their behalf.

Calculating a new address:

  • Each rural road will be given a name and a designated starting point.
  • The address number will be based on how many metres the property entrance is from the start of the road, divided by 10.
  • If the entrance is 5080 metres from the start of Taplan Road then the address will be 508 Taplan Road.
  • The numbers are rounded up or down so that all properties on the left side of the road (driving away from the nominated starting point) are odd numbers and properties on the right are even numbers.
  • So if 508 Taplan Road was on the left hand side it would be rounded up to 509.
  • All properties will be signposted, however when driving it will be possible to simply use the odometer to find out how much further you need to go.
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